Beyond acting

One of your other favourite activities seems to be singing and dancing, and you actually danced and sung in a video for The New Pornographers' "The Laws Have Changed" - and you're doing a pretty good job, too. You've also hosted A Capella Inventions, and participated on Tiki Bar TV. Is your dancing and singing side something we're going to see more of in the future?

I love singing and dancing, though I'm considerably better at one than the other (I'll let you guess which). I can't imagine what venue you could see me doing more of that though; other than YouTube of course. A Bar Mitzvah maybe? Anyone?

By the way, while we're on the subject of singing and dancing... Supanova, Sydney, Tainted Love, Nicholas Brendon, YouTube. Do you want to tell the story yourself or shall I send our dear and loving readers to the YouTube video? See Sonic go wild in the crowd!

Haha, I'm not sure if that's a threat or a compliment. I actually dared him to join me, and he did. Poor guy. I think I'll let the video speak for itself.

We already know you and a few friends are working on a sort of social networking site for students, with the ambitious goal of bringing back the humanity into social networking. In what way is your project going to be different from other social networking sites? What is the element that will bring back the humanity?

My goal is to help foster a true sense of community among young people and inspire critical thought and action. I think technology is so incredible and hugely important in the progress of science, communication, and innovation, but the process by which we relate to it often lacks vision and humanity. So our project is still in the process of development, but I believe the element that will bring back the humanity will involve overcoming fear and prejudices. I think fear is what separates us and breeds dependency on material things, and our prejudice erodes our ability to experience ourselves authentically, so confronting those issues is an essential element.

You also mentioned that through this new website, students would be able to get discounts when buying certain items. How would that work? What kind of companies and products are involved?

I don't want to say too much, because like I said we're still working on it, but a large part of building a successful community is people understanding value exchange. So the products and companies themselves aren't necessarily as relevant as, say, the way people measure and relate with them.

On a related note, how's your blog doing? In your latest post, you mentioned a redesign - can you give any hints?

Very soon!!!

Acting beyond BSG

Die-hard fans of either Nicki Clyne or the television series Dead Like Me will know that you played a minor role in episode 6 of season 2 of Dead Like Me, "In Escrow". What was it like on the set of Dead Like Me?

Dead Like Me was a lot of fun. I love the humor on that show. I tried to leave the barbed wire neck tattoo on for as long as possible to freak out my friends, but avoiding washing your neck in the shower is next to impossible.

Did you already know the series before you signed up for the part? Do you like the series? Were the atmosphere and the people very different from those of BSG?

I actually hadn't seen it before, but I watched it after and thought it was great. It's a shame it was cancelled. The set itself was run like clockwork, I was in and out in a matter of hours. That rarely happened on BSG.

There's also a new Dead Like Me direct-to-DVD film coming out early next year [interview was conducted in 2008], and there's been hints that if sales are decent enough, the series might be brought back for a 3rd run. If they asked you to take on a more recurring role (but not as that lousy babysitter) on a possible Dead Like Me revival, would you do it? In fact, would you like to be a regular in another TV series at all? Comedy perhaps?

Yes, yes, and yes!

How was it to host that episode of Hypaspace? [sadly, no longer available online] It really looked like you were having a lot of fun - although I must say I'm not exactly sure what made me laugh more; you, or some of the people in the actual items...

You know, that experience was actually very fun for me because, as a child of the 80's and 90's, I grew up watching MTV. I used to dream of being an MTV VJ, I just thought they were the coolest! So I figured this was a good opportunity to test my skills, and I think I did alright. I actually got to edit all my dialogue and improvise a lot - the crew was very tolerant of my antics. But in the end, I learned that staring at a teleprompter for hours on end and acting really excited is a tough job, I don't know if I'd want to do it every day.